Text: Ahmadinejad’s letter to the American people

posted at 1:40 pm on November 29, 2006 by Allahpundit

Hot off the presses. I’ve only glanced at it but it looks like the usual melange of Jew-baiting, Aquarian peace and love, and left-wing Bush-hate bullet points. Back with quotes in a few. In the meantime, here’s an image to meditate on while you read.

Update: MSNBC.com has a poll up asking if its readers are interested in Ahmadinejad has to say and whether it’s time for dialogue. As of this writing, 58% say yes.

Update: Here you go. Jew-baiting:

We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people. Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine…

What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors? Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?

I recommend that in a demonstration of respect for the American people and for humanity, the right of Palestinians to live in their own homeland should be recognized so that millions of Palestinian refugees can return to their homes and the future of all of Palestine and its form of government be determined in a referendum. This will benefit everyone.

Even Jimmy Carter rejects the right of return. Aquarian peace and love:

I am confident that you, the American people, will play an instrumental role in the establishment of justice and spirituality throughout the world. The promises of the Almighty and His prophets will certainly be realized, Justice and Truth will prevail and all nations will live a true life in a climate replete with love, compassion and fraternity.

And the Bush-hate:

Governments are there to serve their own people. No people wants to side with or support any oppressors. But regrettably, the US administration disregards even its own public opinion and remains in the forefront of supporting the trampling of the rights of the Palestinian people…

The US Government used the pretext of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but later it became clear that that was just a lie and a deception…

[American soldiers’] mothers and relatives have, on numerous occasions, displayed their discontent with the presence of their sons and daughters in a land thousands of miles away from US shores…

You have certainly heard the sad stories of the Guantanamo and Abu-Ghraib prisons…

You are witnessing daily that under the pretext of “the war on terror,” civil liberties in the United States are being increasingly curtailed. Even the privacy of individuals is fast losing its meaning…

Now that Iraq has a Constitution and an independent Assembly and Government, would it not be more beneficial to bring the US officers and soldiers home, and to spend the astronomical US military expenditures in Iraq for the welfare and prosperity of the American people? As you know very well, many victims of Katrina continue to suffer, and countless Americans continue to live in poverty and homelessness.

So he covered all his bases. But what’s this?

I’d also like to say a word to the winners of the recent elections in the US:…

If the US Government meets the current domestic and external challenges with an approach based on truth and Justice, it can remedy some of the past afflictions and alleviate some of the global resentment and hatred of America. But if the approach remains the same, it would not be unexpected that the American people would similarly reject the new electoral winners, although the recent elections, rather than reflecting a victory, in reality point to the failure of the current administration’s policies.

Long story short, he wants us out of Iraq and on the Palestinians’ side. Those two demands or some variation of them are probably his preconditions for talks, too, so there’s what you have to work with if the Baker Commission approach prevails. Good luck.

One last thing. What’s up with this?

It is possible to govern based on an approach that is distinctly different from one of coercion, force and injustice.

It is possible to sincerely serve and promote common human values, and honesty and compassion.

It is possible to provide welfare and prosperity without tension, threats, imposition or war.

He uses those clusters of abstract nouns constantly, not only in this letter but in other things he’s written. Does anyone know if that’s a convention of Farsi style? Or is this some sort of rhetorical strategy the point of which I’m missing?

It is possible to govern based on an approach that is distinctly different from one of coercion, force and injustice. It is possible to sincerely serve and promote common human values, and honesty and compassion.
It is possible to provide welfare and prosperity without tension, threats, imposition or war.

“He uses those clusters of abstract nouns constantly, not only in this letter but in other things he’s written. Does anyone know if that’s a convention of Farsi style? Or is this some sort of rhetorical strategy the point of which I’m missing?”

AP, this is his ‘do like muhammed says’ set up. He’s offering us Islam. It’s the first thing he must do before he can subdue or kill a non-muslim is give them/us a chance to convert. He words it quite cleverly, but its an offer to agree that islam is the only way.
This opens the door for him to to take severe actions. The first step in what could become an all out war, a war he has promised.

But, can terrorism be contained and eradicated through war, destruction and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocents?
An interesting point, no?

GregH on November 29, 2006 at 2:03 PM

No. What is interesting is your choice to take the pro-Ahmagonnabuildanukeijad, anti-US position in this thread, of course with all of your tried-and-not-so-true Lib-Dem BS rhetoric woven in. You think yourself clever. You, sir, are gonna clever yourself into oblivion if enough people start believing your claptrap. Why you libs can’t understand the fact that these people want to destroy us is beyond my comprehension.

Your willingness to quote and attempt to defend this monster is very telling about you and your ilk.

liberals like GregH / honora & Constantine are more loyal to the terrorist cause than they are loyal to this country & GregH keeps proving my point everytime he says stuff like this. — Starblazer

…while I have my doubts about GregH, I don’t think that Honie or Connie are “more loyal to the terrorist cause than they are loyal to this country”. They have different visions of what the country should be, is all. You can talk with such a person. As I said, GregH excites my doubts, and I would hope that he accepts this in the spirit in which it is offered.

One thing that I *WOULD* question some folks about — Honie and Connie possibly — is being loyal first to the *IDEA* of this nation and then, and only after, to the nation itself. The idea, the theory of what the nation is or might be or what one has come to think that it is — sort of like that think RFK used to quote (from Shaw?), “I see things the way they might be and say why not” — is a very slippery thing, and a very inhuman thing, as well.

The nation isn’t what it might be, or what it started out to be. The nation has been sold as many sorts of things to many sorts of people. What the nation has *BEEN* is a concrete thing. It’s open to interpretation, but they’re interpretations of facts on the ground, not opinions in a coffeehouse or student union somewhere.

One must be loyal to America’s past, to its traditions, and to those who’ve built the today we’re standing on. This is honoring *REAL* people — parents, grandparents, uncles and great aunts — who did real things, good and bad. We honor the good and perpetuate it, spread itif we can; and we learn from the bad, and try to recognize it when it tries to surface again.

We can’t allow ourselves to be more loyal to an idea than to people. Ideals have a way of festering. Minds have a way of changing at the first whiff of difficulty. One is taught that America was founded upon ideals, but that’s mythological claptrap. It was founded on the notion that the government should do just enough to allow the citizen to make and grow and transport and sell his goods, build his house, and have a say in things.

What is more, history tells us that those who build nations on ideals beyond the welfare of the citizen and the ability of the citizen to tend his vine and fig tree have been some of the most intrusive, harsh, incompetent, imperialistic and murderous regimes to come along.

We need to be loyal to the nation, which is ultimately being loyal to our neighbors. There are lots of ways of doing it right, and a few iron-clad ways of doing it wrong, chief among them being the assumption that you know better how to spend your neighbors’s money, teach his kids, direct his affairs and fight his fights than he does himself.

The other guarenteed way of betraying your nation and your neighbor is simple: fix upon an idea and hold to it, fixedly. Usually that leads to whatever that idea *WAS* being replaced with a universally bad idea: that your neighbor is a villain.

Once we’re going down that road, there won’t be a nation to be loyal *TO*.

Regarding the string of abstract nouns, I disagree with the JihadWatch theory of it as a courtesy invitation to Islam, and I don’t know enough Farsi conventions to say whether it’s something there either. I have had several interactions with radical Muslims where it and similar strings of words come out of their mouths, and at the oddest times too. Perhaps I’m oversensitive to it being an academic, but here’s my take. They seem to mention the word “justice” and related justicespeak as a way to disarm the listener in preface to what is usually a more threatening statement on their part. It’s like some sort of verbal just war convention. They don’t like being interrupted during the uttering of these prefatory comments, and when pressed, a somewhat philosophical diatribe ensues. Something along the lines of you Westerners think you know everything about justice and [add additional justicespeak here], but you don’t know anything about equity or the Arabic reception of Aristotle… Granted, I’ve been dealing with some highly educated radical Muslims, and I try my best to keep up, but time after time, I find myself going back to the books, trying to find out what it is the heck they are talking about and everything I can learn about their conceptions of justice without getting a headache. Those books from Brill Publishers hurt. Often, I’m tempted to think it’s all just a bunch of bombast or pompous speech. At least my Diction software from Solaris says it’s that. However, I’m also tempted at times to use a Jerrold Post-type method and/or psychoanalyze backgrounds. Along this line, I’ve found some interesting correlations with peace movements as well as the usual oral history stuff you’d expect to find relative to contacts with certain influences.

I don’t pretend to know that much about history, but that reference sounds rather Churchillian. If not, it is still a battle between wrong and right, between dishonor and war, between submission and freedom, between believing in an ideal and fighting for an ideal, and ultimately between idealism and reality. If those of us in the West are opposed to the Islamic model for the world, we must oppose it to the extent of our capabilities. If we do not stand up to this aggression, then our descendands will surely pay a terrible price, whether we do or not.

GregH, the troll, wrote: “I’m not playing the role of apologist for Ahmadinejad.”

Of course he is.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. [Marcus Tullius Cicero]

So, the insulated Iranian President ventured out away from his hard-line handlers and sent a letter to the people of the United States. What an accomplishment, sir! This must be your first real contact with a common American since you took part in the terrorist attack on our Embassy in 1979. The years have been kind to you, Mr. President; you still have that spark of stupidity running through your veins. I trust you will encourage your people to write to us, too. We can be pen pals and exchange stories about the freedoms we enjoy in our countries.

Your people enjoy blowing themselves up and we enjoy blowing you up. You would think we would all get along better.

Recall that after Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s last offer of almost everything the Palestinians had demanded in exchange for a genuine peace agreement with Israel, Clinton had no choice but to blame Arafat and the Palestinians for the failure, since it was obvious that the Palestinians were not – and had no interest in – negotiating in good faith for genuine peace with the Israelis. That was then – this is now: The Hamas leadership threatens Israel with a “new” Palestinian intifada if Israel doesn’t agree to every Palestinian demand within the next 6 months. But one side asceding to the other’s demands is not “negotiation.”

As for your anti-Semitic hate, if you’ll let me know the next time you’re in New York, I would enjoy meeting you one-on-one, so that I can fully respond to your hateful remarks in the only way you’ll understand.

…while I have my doubts about GregH, I don’t think that Honie or Connie are “more loyal to the terrorist cause than they are loyal to this country”. They have different visions of what the country should be, is all. You can talk with such a person. As I said, GregH excites my doubts, and I would hope that he accepts this in the spirit in which it is offered.

One thing that I *WOULD* question some folks about — Honie and Connie possibly — is being loyal first to the *IDEA* of this nation and then, and only after, to the nation itself. The idea, the theory of what the nation is or might be or what one has come to think that it is — sort of like that think RFK used to quote (from Shaw?), “I see things the way they might be and say why not” — is a very slippery thing, and a very inhuman thing, as well.

The nation isn’t what it might be, or what it started out to be. The nation has been sold as many sorts of things to many sorts of people. What the nation has *BEEN* is a concrete thing. It’s open to interpretation, but they’re interpretations of facts on the ground, not opinions in a coffeehouse or student union somewhere.

One must be loyal to America’s past, to its traditions, and to those who’ve built the today we’re standing on. This is honoring *REAL* people — parents, grandparents, uncles and great aunts — who did real things, good and bad. We honor the good and perpetuate it, spread itif we can; and we learn from the bad, and try to recognize it when it tries to surface again.

We can’t allow ourselves to be more loyal to an idea than to people. Ideals have a way of festering. Minds have a way of changing at the first whiff of difficulty. One is taught that America was founded upon ideals, but that’s mythological claptrap. It was founded on the notion that the government should do just enough to allow the citizen to make and grow and transport and sell his goods, build his house, and have a say in things.

What is more, history tells us that those who build nations on ideals beyond the welfare of the citizen and the ability of the citizen to tend his vine and fig tree have been some of the most intrusive, harsh, incompetent, imperialistic and murderous regimes to come along.

We need to be loyal to the nation, which is ultimately being loyal to our neighbors. There are lots of ways of doing it right, and a few iron-clad ways of doing it wrong, chief among them being the assumption that you know better how to spend your neighbors’s money, teach his kids, direct his affairs and fight his fights than he does himself.

The other guarenteed way of betraying your nation and your neighbor is simple: fix upon an idea and hold to it, fixedly. Usually that leads to whatever that idea *WAS* being replaced with a universally bad idea: that your neighbor is a villain.

Once we’re going down that road, there won’t be a nation to be loyal *TO*.

Puritan1648 on November 30, 2006 at 12:14 AM

I am not sure I completely understand this, but IMO, my first loyalty to God and my family, my second loyalty is to my country. I think the “idea” of the nation is important; we should support our leaders when they are leading us towards the ideal, we should not when they are not. The ideal is therefore in a sense more important that people–people come and go, people are good or bad–but the ideal remains. If you don’t agree America was founded on ideals, as you state, well you obviously won’t buy into this.

I think the idea of connection with the past, family, friends, neighbors, is more of an emotional thing–I love my country based on that. Loyalty is different from love though.

Does this jackass really think that the American people who read this are as stupid and easily swayed, as his crazy middle-eastern followers are?
Get a grip, I don’t give one shit what the rest of the screwed up world thinks of the U.S. One look at the U.N. should be enough to make us ignore anything these whack-jobs have to say.
He does need to be done away with though.

gee honora, i thought you liberals don’t believe in God. i mean you liberals are trying to get rid of christmas & other christian holidays/ want “One nation under God” taken out of the Pledge of Alleigance / want to take out “in God we trust” in all currency

I stopped listening to anything from Iran once the Ayatollah Khomeini took over- and left his fellow religious cranks at the helm, by law, ever since.

They are so twisted by their dogma into anti-human poses (wishing for their Mahdi-Utopia varient of the Worker’s-Paradise-that-never comes”) that the only answer back to their apocalyptic threats is rational force fro our side.

To prevent these homicidal irrationalists from pursuing their nihilistically delusional Perfect state.

gee honora, i thought you liberals don’t believe in God. i mean you liberals are trying to get rid of christmas & other christian holidays/ want “One nation under God” taken out of the Pledge of Alleigance / want to take out “in God we trust” in all currency

Gee starblazer, I thought someone’s belief in God was determined by their personal choices, not by their political affliation but I guess I am wrong. Now that I think about, when I registered Democrat I was forced to take an oath renouncing God.

And again, removing “God” from currency and the pledge is a fringe belief held by very few members of either party. Even so, one could be a firm believer in God and still want His name removed from the pledge and our money because not every American believes in God and this country was founded on a seperation of church and state.